Favre Retiring?

Profootballtalk.com is “reporting” that the Green Bay Packers website has posted a story that Brett Favre is retiring. The Packers have disabled the story on their site and have denied that Favre has decided to retire.

We don’t know what to think. It’s not uncommon for organizations and news agencies to write stories before news events actually take place. (The New York Times is famous in journalism circles for the team of reporters who pre-author obituaries). Was this one of these? Perhaps.

It’s also possible that Favre really is going to retire and that the Packers are denying the story because it would be sad to send a legend off by mistakenly posting a notice about it on your website. We’ll update the story as is warranted.

UPDATE: If the link was a mistake, the Packers need to get out in front of it with an announcement immediately. We’ve noted before that Favre appears to be overly sensitive to perceived slights from the Packers. This won’t help.

UPDATE II: Also, no word in the Biloxi Sun Herald, where veteran writer Al Jone has broken several of these kinds of stories before.

UPDATE III: PFT is now calling it a “website snafu.”

UPDATE IV: The Sporting News has more, including a look at the page as it was posted. Jeff Blumb from the Packer PR office told WTMJ that “there’s nothing to it.”

UPDATE V: Let’s let this, a denial from Favre’s agent James “Bus” Cook, end this matter.